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What Would Bacchus Do?

The rhetoric and rituals of wine appreciation are sometimes said to be the alimentary equivalent of lipstick on a pig: they are meant to give an attractive sheen to the ugly business of getting drunk. Most oenophiles, of course, take a different view: they regard wine as a uniquely complex beverage — complex in terms of its taste and also the environmental, historical and cultural factors influencing its production — that demands sober reflection (in a manner of speaking). Interestingly, a growing number of academics believe that wine is a subject fit for scholarly reflection. Three years ago, the University of London played host to a symposium on philosophy and wine. Out of that conference grew “Questions of Taste: The Philosophy of Wine,” a collection of essays examining how we think and talk about wine and how it influences us.

A word of advice: this is a book best read with a glass of wine in hand. In part, this is because the material can be heavy going at times, having not been entirely scrubbed of academese (“the socio-epistemological role of the moral qualities of gentleman status and honor in evaluation truthfulness ...”); a glass of syrah will make the chunkier bits easier to swallow. The wine will also be a good study aid, allowing you to road-test ideas the moment they are presented. Take, for instance, the San Francisco State University philosopher Kent Bach’s assertion that even the finest wines “don’t have cognitive or emotional content. Their aesthetic value is provided entirely by the aromas and flavors that they impart.” As you sit there sipping, say, a 2003 Mosel riesling and admiring the wine’s freshness and elegance, you might well conclude that, pace Bach, its aesthetic value is indeed increased by knowing that these qualities were achieved in spite of the heat wave the Mosel experienced that summer. Or you might decide to ponder the point a little longer and pour yourself a second glass.

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Adam Palmer

David Hume’s name is invoked several times, and his famous essay “Of the Standard of Taste” throws a shadow over the entire enterprise. The British philosopher Barry C. Smith, who edited the volume, channels Hume in his quietly provocative essay on objectivity and wine. Smith contends that, contrary to the oft-repeated incantation that taste is personal and all opinions are equally valid, oenophilia is not a strictly subjective exercise, and some people are more adept at judging Burgundies and Rhones than others. He makes the seemingly self-evident point that wines have objective qualities that exist independent of our ability to detect them and boldly asserts that “good tasters are those who get matters right.” In a sentence that will plant a satisfied grin on every wine critic’s face, Smith writes, “There are standards by which we can judge a wine, or musical score, or painting to be better than another, and these reflect discernible properties of those objects, though it may take practice and experience to recognize them.”

Perhaps not wishing to complicate his argument, Smith barely touches on the role biology plays in determining our preferences. But if taste is as individual as scientists believe, is it really possible to achieve agreement about the merits of a particular wine? The British writer Jamie Goode, who specializes in the science of wine, tackles this difficult question with characteristic aplomb. Goode briskly surveys the current research into the psychophysical dimensions of wine tasting, all of which points to a conclusion very different from Smith’s. “What critics are scoring is not some intrinsic property of the liquid in the bottle,” Goode writes, “but a perceptual representation that is to some degree specific to them.” However, he is quick to add that the consensus about many wines is not necessarily an illusion. Despite differences in sensory perception, oenophiles have managed to develop a common vocabulary for wine, and because the words we use influence not only how we describe cabernets and chardonnays, but also how we react to them, it is possible for us to experience wines as other people do.

Not every contribution is so illuminating. A chapter on the language of wine appreciation, normally a rich and highly entertaining topic, is strangely uninformative, consisting of little more than a catalog of popular wine terminology. An interview with the California winemaker Paul Draper, one of the reigning philosopher-kings of American viticulture, runs too long and doesn’t add much to the book. (It is not Draper’s fault; some of the questions put to him just aren’t very interesting.) The volume opens with a long-winded essay by another British philosopher, Roger Scruton, who submits the curious proposition that “the conflict between the Christian Enlightenment and pre-modern Islam” can be explained by our preference for wine and their preference for pot.

To his credit, though, Scruton is the only contributor who makes inebriation the focal point of his discussion. He contends that wine’s stimulative effect is partly self-fulfilling: relishing a wine — yearning, say, for a glass of merlot — helps produce the high we get from that wine. Among its various consequences, intoxication opens us up to other people, and Scruton maintains that this wine-induced sociability serves a much larger purpose than merely rendering us chatty: it enables us to both seek and grant forgiveness for “the impertinence of existing” (now, perhaps, you understand the need to have a glass of wine by your side). Personally, I’ve never known a wine to make me want to apologize for existing. But plenty have left me feeling sorry in the morning.

QUESTIONS OF TASTE

The Philosophy of Wine.

Edited by Barry C. Smith.

222 pp. Oxford University Press. $27.95.

Michael Steinberger, the wine columnist for Slate, is writing a book about France and the future of French cuisine.

A version of this review appears in print on , on page 735 of the New York edition with the headline: What Would Bacchus Do?. Today's Paper|Subscribe